NEW YORK MARATHON

NEW YORK MARATHON; A 'Marriage' Made in a Heaven Called the New York City Marathon

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: October 26, 1992

Fred and Grete. In the movie, they would have been played by Tracy and Hepburn, he of craggy cussedness, she of willowy strength.

Even Hollywood would have known not to monkey with the main characters, not to turn this into a romance, because it is not. They are two of the great people of the bizarre calling known as the marathon. They started as the Scandinavian neophyte and the New York promoter, and they became friends, good friends.

Now, for the first time, they will run together, side by side, a sentimental journey in the New York City Marathon next Sunday. Grete Waitz, one of the most popular athletes ever to set foot in the city, deserves her jaunt through New York because she won this race an astonishing total of nine times. Fred Lebow has completed 68 marathons, half of them on foreign soil, but on Sunday he will run New York for the first time since he expanded the race, his race, to a five-borough, 25,000-runner extravaganza. Recovering From Cancer

Lebow will deserve as many cheers as his companion for the way he has fought back from brain cancer that struck him two years ago. Out of sheer willpower, he got up from his hospital bed and began plodding his way forward, step by step. In his own race, Lebow has worked himself back into good enough shape to dare to run the marathon. A few months ago, Jack Waitz, Grete's husband, casually asked Lebow if he would like company on his trek through the city. Very little touches this force of nature named Fred Lebow, but the offer from the Waitzes set him back on his emotional heels. Yes, he said, he would love to run with Grete.

The two old friends met in New York a few weeks ago, to discuss the race they would run together. Before Lebow arrived, Waitz sat in a hotel chair, blond and healthy and 39, and talked about her friend in her nearly perfect English, clucking the way Hepburn would cluck over one of Tracy's idiosyncratic ventures.

Lebow, 60 years old, came over and they kissed European-style, on both cheeks. His beard has grown back dark since the chemotherapy and he wears a running cap on his head, as always. He was wearing a running outfit, but then again, he always wears a running outfit. Somebody told Lebow that Waitz was worried he was working too hard.

"I'm being cautious," he said in his thick Romanian accent. "I'll do a 19 or a 20. I'll do a 15 and that's it."

"No more long runs?" she entreated. "I'm concerned for you."

Their dialogue, edited slightly, is better than anything a writer could say about them and their sport and their friendship.

"She's run 2:25," Lebow said. "How can she run 5:00?"

"Time goes so fast," Waitz said. "I ran a half-marathon with a retarded girl, who wrote to me and asked me to run with her. We did it in two hours and it went so fast. I'm sure people will give you support. The pace will allow us to look around." Thumbs Up and Jokes

"I'll wear earplugs," Lebow said. "You know I have to concentrate. I can't wave to everybody. I'll just do this." (He held up his two thumbs).

They recalled how they met in 1978, when she was a championship long-distance runner who had never tried the marathon. She had just gotten off the plane from Norway and was whisked to a news conference in this zany city.

"I didn't understand," Waitz said. "This was my first time in the U.S. I just wanted to go to bed, but I went to the reception. They started to ask me about my long runs and I said, my longest was 12 miles. These were writers, but also Fred, and they all looked at me. Fred must have felt, 'What are you doing here?' "

"I decided she'd be a great rabbit," Lebow recalled, meaning somebody who sets a fast pace for more experienced runners.

"I was afraid of speaking good English," Waitz said. "We stayed at the Mayflower across the street from the park. I remember there were two buses for the special runners going out to the fort. Now there is a whole chain of them.

"I didn't know what side of the bridge I should start at. I remember pulling at Fred's pants and saying, 'Please . . .' " Who Was That Blond Girl?

Waitz recalled discovering, midway through the race, that the marathon was more than a trifle uncomfortable.

"I could have killed my husband," she said. "He talked me into it. I had a high number, and people were saying, 'Who is that blond girl?' I was so tired and angry. I just wanted to go home to Norway. You get a tired feeling running other races, but it only lasts a few minutes. Here, I had pains in my side. I was coughing. I was just hurting. I said, 'I'm going to tell Jack how terrible this is.' "

It was so terrible that the rabbit was far ahead of any woman in the race, and she was passing men of considerable skill and ego.